Evaluating How Effective the Product Strategy Is
Measuring the impact of strategy is fundamental to hit the nail on the head
Working without a product strategy is a nightmare. Teams struggle to prioritize, collaborate, and focus. The result is inevitably bad. Low value created and high demotivation. How do you solve that?
Simple. You set a product strategy and follow it. Right?
I wish life were that simple. Crafting a product strategy is the first step, but hitting home with the first version is nearly impossible. Tell me if you know the perfect recipe for product strategy.
The result of a bad product strategy is the same as the absence of one.
For more than a decade on the road, I learned that strategy evolves slowly, but it does evolve. Writing something in stone won’t help you. But measuring the results will.
Over the years, I came up with a simple way to evaluate how effective the product strategy is. Let me share that with you.
Five aspects will reveal the impact of your product strategy:
Ownership: How committed are teams to results?
Prioritization: How independent can teams prioritize their work?
Decision Making: How fast can teams make decisions and progress?
Goals: How often do teams use goals to say no to distractions?
Collaboration: How well do teams collaborate?
Answering these questions can help you understand how your strategy helps or causes more problems. You can use my product strategy health check to evaluate your situation.
Allow me to elaborate on the importance of each aspect.
1 - Ownership
With a sound strategy, teams will commit to outcomes and do their best to find the outputs that drive desired results. Teams won’t stick with features to deliver, but they will relentlessly search for the value drivers.
With a bad product strategy, teams will do their best to deliver features on time as defined. Yet, they won’t care about the results because that’s not their accountability, as somebody else describes what they do.
2 - Prioritization
Where does prioritization take place?
The farther from the team prioritization happens, the slower the team becomes.
It’s shocking. Many teams cannot define what to work on next because someone outside the team needs to make the call. Yet, when the strategy is solid, the team has all they need to prioritize and progress.
3 - Decision Making
When teams lack guidance, they will fall into analysis paralysis. Everything needs deep analysis before committing to something. That’s the result of a confusing product strategy.
When the strategy is clear and sharp, teams focus on progressing because they know what success looks like and the constraints they need to respect.
4 - Goals
The more abstract goals are, the less teams will rely on them.
When a goal doesn’t contribute to decision-making or doesn’t seem achievable in the near future, teams will not have that in their mind. Such a situation contributes to confusion and unnecessary discussions.
When the goal is sharp and achievable in the foreseeable future, teams will use it to make daily decisions. Such goals unlock progress and help teams collaborate in the same direction
5 - Collaboration
Some product strategies force teams to divide and conquer because it overloads them with too many goals. When that’s the case, teams have no chance to collaborate but to compete with one another. They have to coordinate their work to deal with dependencies.
A sound product strategy fosters collaboration. Teams are collaborative and help each other reach their goals. Work becomes fun and engaging, creating more value for the business and customers.
A Question for You
When was the last time you stepped back and reviewed how effective your product strategy is? What’s holding you back from doing it?
Further Reading
Crafting a meaningful product strategy is challenging. I know this drill pretty well. You can read my product strategy guide if you’d like to learn how to solve this puzzle.
Shall we rock the product world together?
Hi David - Question on #4 - How much would you say Teams need clarity on the Product Strategy, which they can then use to set their own goals & priorities, vs. clarity on specific goals to achieve?